


Blood and Coal

by HandsomeManExpress (DangerousCommieSubversive)



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universive - Roaring Twenties, Hate to Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:46:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5220230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangerousCommieSubversive/pseuds/HandsomeManExpress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1920s AU. Adrian Neville, millionaire industrialist, throws a party that gets crashed by a group of anarchists--one of whom is the former owner of his company.</p><p>Originally written for an art trade with a friend on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Coal

 The Neville party is roaring. The band's on fire. Most of the dancers have been going for hours, swinging as if there's no tomorrow, and the bubbly's flowing like water.

“They're going to put cracks in your floor, my friend.” Sami leans on the balcony railing and watches the dancers upside-down, his ever-present flat cap about to fall off his head.

Adrian snorts. “At least _they_ came dressed to dance. You look like you're about to go golfing, mate.”

“I thought you were the darling of the rich and famous now.” Sami grins at him. “Shouldn't I be 'chum'? An egg, or a bean, or a crumpet? 'Old sport,' maybe?”

“ _Gatsby_ was a bloody awful book and you know it,” but Adrian's grinning back. “Not going to go around sounding like what I'm not.”

“It was an awful book, he says, in the middle of a party that'd put Gatsby to shame. So what _are_ you? I'm sure there are ladies on the floor right now who'd like to know.”

“I'm a coal miner's son, is what I am. From Newcastle.”

“A coal miner's son who got out. A coal miner's son owns factories across the British Isles and half of the continental United States.” Now Sami's hat _does_ fall off, but he catches it. “Face it, Adrian, you may not have forgotten the coal, but I'm pretty sure the coal's forgotten you.”

Adrian opens his mouth to reply, but then the band stops suddenly, and people on the floor start shouting, a roar of irritation combined with tipsy delight. Is it part of the party? Has Adrian called in a show?

It’s not a show. Adrian frowns. “What’s going on down there?”

“Looks like you’ve got gatecrashers.” Sami grins at him. “Deuce of a party, if they’re making that much of a mess to get in. And they’re in costume.”

Because the gatecrashers aren’t dressed for this kind of party even though they’re all in black, they’re wild-eyed and grubby, the lower halves of their faces are hidden by masks that look like skulls. Adrian realizes who they are only seconds before his guests do, and then tipsy delight becomes shrieks of thrilled fear.

_Anarchists._

The partygoers huddle on one end of the dance floor, a crowd of murmurs and shudders and drunken laughter. At the other end of the floor the anarchists are silent, their eyes searching.

Then one of them—indistinguishable from the other two but for his light and oddly well-groomed hair—looks up to the balcony. Surveys the scattered guests up there, interrupted in their trysts and people-watching. Spots Adrian. And roars, “Adrian Neville!”

Adrian leans forward over the railing. “That's me, yes, You're a bit late for the start of the party. What do you want?”

The guests titter nervously.

The blond man's voice is full of nasty humor, not fury. “Sir, I name you a thief, a coward, and an oppressor. You must answer for your crimes.”

“What crimes are those, then? And what right've you got to go passing sentence on me?”

“You have been found guilty by the hounds of true justice, the shield of the common people.”

“So what’ve I stolen? What are my crimes?”

“You have risen to power and wealth by backstabbing and theft, climbing on the backs of the downtrodden to success. So says the law of the Shield.”

“And what’s your point?” More nervous giggles as Adrian shrugs off his jacket, loosens his tie. “Because if you want to fight me, I’ll fight. Right here, right now.”

The anarchist’s eyes glitter. “Challenge accepted. But now’s not the time.”

“You’re not really into this whole anarchy business, are you, mate? You just want to go about roughing people up, don’t you?”

The other two anarchists laugh, and their leader shrugs. “It’s a living.”

Then he cracks his neck and tosses something small, and the buffet table goes up in flames.

“You have one week.”

* * *

 

Nobody at the party gets hurt, luckily, but a firebombing is the sort of thing that kills everyone’s mood—they’ve all seen too much of it, some of them were in the _War,_ for god’s sake—so the party disperses rapidly after that, and Adrian is left with an itch under his skin, a niggling whisper of _Do I deserve this? Do I deserve what I’ve got?_ He and Sami sit up late in the library with tumblers of bourbon, but he doesn’t want to burden his friend about it; Sami’s got enough on his mind.

The next day he goes to see the foreman of his nearest factory: Corey Graves—ex-sailor, extensively tattooed and with the kind of muscles that come from working onboard a ship and then moving on to spend all day climbing machinery.

“I hear last night’s party got interesting.” Corey is elbow-deep in uncertain machines; he doesn’t trust anyone else to do the most important repairs. “Did you _really_ attack a group of anarchists bare-handed?”

Adrian sighs. “Not quite. I may’ve challenged one to a wrestling match, though.”

“A _wrestling_ match?” Corey snorts. “You? The captain of industry? You’re going to wrestle an anarchist bomber.”

“That’s my plan.”

“That’s an awful plan, Adrian, and you should feel ashamed of yourself.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“That’s because you’d been drinking. Do you even know how to wrestle?”

“I’m fair enough. I’ve won my share of pub fights.” Adrian leans back against the wall next to Graves’ open machine, surveying the floor of his factory as he’d surveyed the party last night—and he spots, among the workers, a head that looks somehow familiar, an oddly well-groomed thatch of blondish hair above an oil-stained face muffled by a scarf to guard against soot and smoke. “Here, Graves, who’s that fellow, the blond one? I don’t recognize him.”

Graves looks up in surprise. “What, him? That’s Dean Ambrose. He’s been here for ages. Since before you bought the factory, actually.”

“Excuse me.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

* * *

 

Adrian manages to catch up to Dean Ambrose almost as soon as he gets down onto the factory floor, and the other man doesn't even try to run away from him.

He just starts with a punch to the nose.

Adrian comes up bloody and angry and dives for him.

They roll out into an open space on the floor in an angry ball of fists and feet as around them the other factory workers stop what they're doing and stare. Two in particular—a massive, dark-eyed man with his long hair braided and a slim, shifty one with a scarf on his head—look on with some interest. They seem suspiciously familiar.

“Why'd you do it?” Adrian growls when they roll to a stop against a table. “What'd I ever do to you?”

Dean grins down at him, bloody-mouthed. “For the _fun_ of it. Why _else?_ ”

“I could have you off my lot and out on your arse in _minutes,_ mate. Why risk your livelihood for _fun?_ ” Adrian rolls and flips them, spitting blood onto the stone floor.

“What other reason is there to do anything?”

Adrian punches him in the jaw.

* * *

 

“You _found_ him?”

“He _works_ for me.” Adrian scowls up at the ceiling, the steak the cook brought up pressed against his black eye, his split lip aching. “He's mad, is what he is. I should have him confined.”

Sami tosses a golf ball from hand to hand, his eyebrows rising. “He sounds interesting, my friend. You should bring him around sometime. Make him the guest of honor at a lunch or something. It'd probably make him angry.”

* * *

 

Adrian visits the factory almost every day for the next week, because a week was how long Dean-the-anarchist gave him. There's already a party planned for the match, nobody will just let him fight his sudden nemesis in peace. Enzo's actually started taking bets, because what else would Adrian expect from a man like him?

He sees Dean during every visit. The man goes out of his way to be noticed.

They fight every time.

He learns that Dean Ambrose is:

  * _educated,_ despite not seeming like the type for it

  * trained to fight

  * unpredictable

  * unsteady on his feet

  * _vicious_

  * not as he claims to be, not from as humble an origin nor as rough a part of town




and that the anarchist's friends follow him everywhere, like a pack of ragged, hungry-eyed hounds. They're feared as a group in the factory; they've made their own laws.

The day before the fighting-party (everything can be made a party in these days, the world almost ended once and now they'll rejoice at every moment that it didn't) he and Dean find themselves in a corner of the factory yard, alone. Corey has at this point accepted that his employer will do what he wants, and stopped getting angry at him for dragging a reliable worker off the factory floor.

They bite and scratch and hit, and when they fall apart exhausted Dean says, “You're one hell of a fighter.”

“You're damn right.” Adrian stares at the sky, breathing hard. “If I hadn't been then I'd've been stuck in the coal forever. What's got you so interested in my business, then? What's got you going about saying I'm a thief and that?”

“I used to own this place.” Dean stares at the sky as well, bloody and bruised and grinning like anything. “I don't like the way you run it.”

“Then you shouldn't have sold it, mate.”

“I did what I had to.”

Their hands touch briefly as they're picking themselves up, and their blood is mixed in the dirt of the factory yard. Adrian doesn't _respect_ his difficult opponent any more, but he's _curious._

* * *

 

The sun comes up on the day of the fighting-party like it's any other day. First servants begin to make preparations, and then guests begin to arrive, and Sami spends the entire day trying to talk Adrian out of the whole thing.

“Look, Adrian.” The ginger Arab is perched on the end of Adrian's dining table, flat cap on his head as always but the face shaded by it uncharacteristically worried. “I think you're getting a little too involved here. Why not call the police and have them take care of him?”

“They've got other things on their minds. Prohibition and whatnot.”

“He says, as 'round the back men are carting in crates of illegal champagne—ah, yes, I suppose you wouldn't want them in here.” Sami peers at him. “Still. You're throwing yourself at a wall. The man doesn't _want_ to change. He's only here to make you angry.”

“It's the principle of it.” Adrian pushes his hair back from his forehead, wincing as he brushes against new and healing bruises. “ _He_ came into _my_ house.”

* * *

 

They get an hour of drinking and dancing before the anarchists force their way in—well, force is what they seem to do, although Adrian gave the servants orders to let them in through the back hours ago. The guests shriek and laugh as they arrive, clinking glasses and cheering, the fear of last week forgotten. Now it's just a fight, isn't it? A fight they've been looking forward to. The only people in the room not smiling are Adrian, Sami, and the anarchists.

“We are here for the trial by combat,” Dean-the-anarchist roars from behind his mask. “Stand and fight, coward.”

Adrian shrugs his jacket off, undoes his tie, strips off his shirt. “Just so long as you don't light my table on fire again, we've got to eat something.”

The guests laugh even as they're shying away from the center of the floor.

The fight itself is almost an anti-climax. They've been rehearsing it for a week, on floors much harder than this and with onlookers much friendly. The only difference is, those fights had no winners; this one _has_ to.

As they square off, Adrian rolls his neck and lets the coal miner's son in his heart sing out.

Dean Ambrose dives at him.

They fight.

And it's the same fight as the one they've already had, only this time Adrian's fist finally meets Dean's chin and the smaller man stumbles back and falls.

Knock out.

The crowd murmurs, and someone in the back says, sounding disappointed, “Is that all?”

Adrian scowls, shaking his head. Blood runs down his face from a cut in his forehead, and his guests step back as he says, “What else were you expecting? He came into my house expecting a fight, and I gave him one.”

A moment's silence, and then his guests cheer and toast and it's like there wasn't a fight, and Adrian is disgusted with himself.

“Put him in the blue room and treat any wounds,” he says irritably to the servants hovering at his elbow. “You can go with him, if you like,” to Dean's two friends. “My people will bring you whatever you want to eat.”

The anarchists leave the room in silence, following the servants carrying their fallen friend.

“Have you stood by your principles, my friend?” Sami's got his jacket. “That didn't look like much of a fight.”

Adrian shrugs. “I don't think we really disagree on much.”

* * *

 

When the guests have been successfully shooed away and Sami's gone off to the library to read in peace, Adrian goes up to the blue room to visit his...enemy.

The other two anarchists are sitting next to the bed, speaking softly with Dean, who's been stripped of his black rags and bathed and bandaged. He looks up when Adrian comes in, and without a word the other two simply...leave.

Adrian sits down in one of the vacated chairs and says, “Has there been any reason for this, Dean Ambrose?”

“Maybe I just wanted your rich friends to see you for who you really are.” Dean grins. “They could use some shaking up. They forget that we all come from somewhere.”

“Most of 'em come from money, you can't blame them for it.”

“Don't tell me what I can't blame them for.” Dean sits up straighter in the bed, wincing momentarily—and then reaches out and grabs Adrian by the back of the hair, pulling his face close. “Or maybe I just wanted to remind you that this was my house first.”

Adrian grins and tastes blood on his own lips. “But it's my house now.”

This time they don't fight.

But it's not dissimilar.

Sami comes by not long after Adrian goes up to the blue room and finds the other two anarchists sitting outside the door, looking bored. He moves to go in, but the bigger one puts out a hand to stop him, which he almost argues with until he _listens_ for a moment.

He frowns. “Are they...?”

The big anarchist nods.

“That's a terrible idea.”

The slim anarchist with the unusual hair rolls his eyes. “That's how he does things.”

Sami thinks about it. “I suppose it's how Adrian does things too.”


End file.
